Like many other student loan borrowers, Sean Vaillancourt of Phippsburg, Maine, found student debt has forced him and his wife to put their lives on hold year after year.

“Student debt has been difficult for my marriage as we are both working mainly to pay off this debt,” Vaillancourt reported. ”We are waiting to have children and buy a home because our combined student debt is more than a mortgage on a home. This debt has been a huge burden and point of contention throughout our last 10 years. “

“I often imagine what life would look like for us if we were not imprisoned by debt to our current life,” he added.

Vaillancourt is one of 7,095 borrowers who participated in a 50-state survey for the new report “Buried in Debt,” a national research study on the state of student loan borrowers in 2018 by the social impact startup Summer and the nonprofit organization Student Debt Crisis.

Among those responding to the survey, borrowers owed an average of $87,500 in debt but made an average annual income of $60,000. (The average student loan debt nationwide is lower, with students from the class of 2016 carrying an average of $37,172 in student debt, according to 2016 statistics.)

Faced with seemingly insurmountable debt, some borrowers have had to postpone marriage, buying a home and other life decisions indefinitely. “Regularly, I contemplate selling everything and living in my car to help free up money to pay off the debt sooner,” wrote a female respondent from Texas. She had had to put off having children, marrying or purchasing a home, she reported, due to the high costs of student debt repayment.

Natalia Abrams, executive director of Student Debt Crisis, says these stories are all too common. “We do get stories of borrowers who are struggling with the idea of suicide,” she said. “These are not people who tried to get rich quick; these are not people looking for a handout. It’s so disheartening that they have not only received no help from the current administration, it has been rolling back or eliminating programs designed to protect them.”

Student debt has had “a disastrous domino effect for millions of Americans,” according to Abrams. “The reality of the day-to-day crisis is staggering. The average borrower has under $1,000 in savings, and 80% cannot save for retirement. And we are not just talking young people -- we’ve talked to many borrowers in their sixties who are still trying to pay off their student loans and are worried they will never have enough to retire.”

The study found that student loan debt interfered in people's plans for marriage and families, leading 19% of respondents to delay getting married and 26% to put off having children.

Student debt also cast a shadow over everything from financial security to philanthropy. Overwhelming debt prevented 80% of borrowers from saving for retirement, 56% from buying a home, 42% from buying a car, and 50% from contributing to charity, according to the report. More than 85% said student loan debt was a major source of stress, and one in three said such debt is the biggest stress in their lives.

Buried in debt

Some of the other key findings from “Buried in Debt” include:

-- Nearly nine of 10 student loan borrowers are struggling to make payments. One in five borrowers reports they cannot make the next loan payment, and 44% say it would be a struggle.

-- Most borrowers reported they have less than $1,000 in their bank account, with high student loan payments partly to blame. Meanwhile,58% of borrowers have taken a hit to their credit, with 10% failing a credit check for a job interview and 13% failing a credit check for an apartment.

-- Six percent of borrowers have had their Social Security payments or wages seized.

-- 18% report being in default on at least one student loan. This is the same percentage of borrowers federal agencies show are in default in the United States: 18%, or 8 million out of 44 million.

-- One in three of the borrowers report their student loan bill is higher than their rent or mortgage bill, with 65% saying their monthly student loan bill is more than their food budget for the month.

--Nearly 40% of borrowers report they have been unable to achieve their career goals. As for becoming their own bosses, 28% said their student debt prevented them from starting a business.

“These survey results reveal that student loan borrowers are on thin ice, and many are falling through without a lifeline,” said Will Sealy, the founder and CEO ofSummer, a start-up dedicated to helping student loan borrowers repay their loans, in a written statement. “That means that millions of Americans face financial calamity, with all the limitations and stress that comes with it.” (Sealy formerly worked to protect students against predatory lenders as part of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.)

To make things worse, a troubling number of student loan companies have been prosecuted for predatory practices, such as abusive loan terms or convincing a borrower to accept unfair terms through deception or coercion.

According to the report, nearly 60% of borrowers reported that their loan servicer has given them “confusing” or “unhelpful” advice about their loans. A quarter of the respondents had confronted a surprise additional fee from their servicing company, 57% had experienced unexpected demands after a sudden change in the loan servicer, and 42% had trouble negotiating a change to the repayment plan when they had financial hardships.

“My loan are now almost equal to my rent, but once were nearly double my rent,” reported respondent Melissa Mills of Fort Worth, Texas. “I have begged multiple time for Sallie Mae to assist in lowering the monthly payments when a medical event happens, to which they have told me to quit my job and find a better-paying one.”

Meanwhile, borrowers continue to default on student loans every 28 seconds, according to Student Debt Crisis -- something that contributes to wage seizure and an ongoing spiral of debt that could hold back economic growth in the country. Small wonder that Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested that borrowers should be able to discharge student debt in bankruptcy. And a study by Bard College’s Levy Economics Institute found that simply forgiving all student debt would boost the U.S. economy by $1 trillion.

As the debate continues, a survey respondent from Pennsylvania identified as “Colleen” discussed her plight in a passage echoed by many others. “My student loans have prevented me from really living,” she wrote. “They stress me out more than I can explain. I pay and pay and pay, and the balance never seems to go down. Two of my loans have interest rates of 15%, and I have a third loan at 12%. I put almost two full paychecks towards my loans a month. It’s frustrating and honestly makes me feel completely defeated.”

She is a currently a full-time science writer and finishing a Master of Science degree in sustainable agriculture at Green Mountain College.